Gail Matthius’s Short Time on the SNL ‘Playground’

As Saturday Night Live’s 50th season approaches, a cottage industry is set to be unleashed recounting the various legendary anecdotes that have come out of Studio 8H over the past several decades. While one of the most noteworthy and oft-cited is the meteoric origin story of Eddie Murphy, his leap to SNL was not the only sudden jump to NBC’s sketch series during this era. Fellow season-six cast member Gail Matthius’s time on the show occurred a mere year after her move to Los Angeles, a move funded by performing jingles and visiting farms on behalf of Allis-Chalmers tractors across the Great Plains.

While at SNL, Matthius worked alongside a number of future comedy household names like Murphy and Gilbert Gottfried. She collaborated with fellow cast member Denny Dillon on several recurring characters, including Valley girl Vicki and Roweena, a midwestern hairdresser. She also partnered with Charles Rocket at the “Weekend Update” desk and as one-half of the Livelys, married game-show hosts whose home life resembled on-air banter.

Since her tumultuous SNL year, Matthius has done voicework for many iconic ’90s cartoons like Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, and Bobby’s World, where she played the Roweena-flavored mom Martha Generic. Today, she continues to perform improv and is one of the lead singers of the rock band the Shambles (L.A.). “I don’t know that I ever got to where it was really a playground,” she says now while reflecting on her stint on the show during one of the most perilous times in its history. “It was a lot of pressure that I didn’t even realize at the time. I was just like, Oh, this is how it is. This is normal.”

How did you get on SNL?
Way before I came to Hollywood, I had this job. My husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, had already gone to L.A. But I stayed back because I got this big industrial gig and was going to earn more money than I ever had in my entire life. I was singing the praises of the big orange line of Allis-Chalmers tractors — in the winter, in the garage pits of the repair shops. I would sit on farmers’ laps, singing “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.”

I had a whole show, like [singing] “That’s the 7050, you gotta get it now / If you don’t buy that beautiful piece, you’re gonna have a cow!” I earned a lot; then, in April ’79, I moved to Los Angeles from Minneapolis with my stand-up act. I worked a day job, then I’d take a nap and get up at night and go around to five or six different clubs, including the Belly Room at the Comedy Store and a couple of appearances at the Improv. At some point, the dear, departed Lotus Weinstock recommended me to the SNL people, who were on the hunt. This was a year or so later — probably spring of ’80, maybe June. They saw me do my stand-up, then they wanted to see me in my improv group. Then, I had one big audition where they wanted to see my act in front of a large audience. That was out in the Valley and the first time I developed back problems, because the stress was so intense! I knew I was getting closer and closer.

Then, they flew me to New York, and I had an eight-hour audition, where they were mixing and matching us. I felt pretty good, because I kept getting sent back in to do cold readings and mixing and matching with different people. I was getting the stink eye from other women, so I knew that maybe something was up.

Do you remember who you were paired with?
I think that Paul Reubens and I did some cold readings together. I definitely remember Joe Piscopo.

Your uncle is Tony nominee Swen Swenson, who appeared on things like Your Show of Shows. How close were you growing up, and did he have any advice for you regarding doing live TV comedy when you were both in New York?
And Hit Parade! That’s in the way back. I remember watching that with my mother. She’s going, “My brother’s going to be on. Sit down, kids!” He would come from New York occasionally to where I was, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to visit his sister and his two brothers. He was the glamorous Broadway dancer-actor from New York, and he’d bring his Yorkies. It was a big deal when he would come to Sioux Falls.

When I was in New York, he was living there, and I absolutely pulled him in. Possibly the first time I was riding in a limousine, and I said, “Come on, Swen. You’re gonna come with me!” At the time, it just seemed like he was being a Debbie Downer. He said, “Yeah, you’re riding high now. But just you wait.” I was like [Vicki voice] “God, sour grapes.”

You’re the first person who appears at the start of SNL season six. Can you take me through that cold open with Elliott Gould?
It was pretty fun to be in bed with everybody — literally. And have Denny at our feet. It was like, This is normal, right? You get friends really fast when you’re working in that kind of environment.

You got a lot of play in that first episode. I think Vicki debuted in that one, and you did the breast-cancer-awareness sketch.
I got such blowback about that breast-exam thing. The cancer-awareness people were like, “Ugh, you’re offending us all.” And I just was like, I’m just going with it. You’re giving me a sketch. I’m digging it. I’m doing it.

You had already developed Vicki, right? How about Roweena?
Vicki was in my stand-up act. Before I arrived, I made a document and protected all my characters that I had ownership of, including the Roweena character Denny and I played in the hair salon. She was based on my mother’s hairdresser. Her name was not Roweena — that’s a small town in South Dakota. She wasn’t quite so charactery. She was actually quite a stunning woman, but she would complain about her varicose veins, and I went, I’m gonna save that for later use.

I always associate Don Pardo with your time on the show. You appear in a Livelys sketch with him — his first on-air appearance.
As gentle and warm as his voice was, that’s who he was. He was a teddy bear. A lovely, lovely man.

I’m guessing the Livelys was one that you must have developed while you were at the show.
You know what happens on the show? My sense of humor would meld with certain players and certain writers, and we would just gravitate and spitball. There were also two of the writers, Mel Green and Billy Brown. The four of us, including my dear friend, may she rest in peace, we were in an improv group. The three of us were hired, but she remained a very dear friend. Our friendship survived that, but it was very upsetting that we got chosen and she didn’t.

Your husband is John Wirth, showrunner for the AMC series Dark Winds. Were you dating him at this point?
He’s my high-school boyfriend. We got married when my option was not renewed for the next season. And we’ve been married for over 42 years.

He was not in New York with me. He was getting his own career going in L.A. We were living together there but decided I needed to go to New York completely unhindered, so to speak. He was super-generous in that he let me go. [Laughs]

“Where’s Cooter?” is an infamous sketch from your season.
I loved the sketches that were “once in a while,” like the sketch I did with Ellen Burstyn where I was the little trick-or-treater, which was sort of a bittersweet Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore moment. But then to do that kind of Tennessee Williams swat? I just took the lid off. The lid was off and I just kept slappin’. Just was going for it.

Would you say the Ellen Burstyn sketch is one of your highlights from the season?
Yeah, I mean, wow, hello. Just being in that scene with her. And granted, I was wearing a bunny suit and using my little-girl voice and stuff, but just to be in her midst? Wow. It’s emblazoned in my memory bank.

Another highlight is your Nancy Reagan impersonation, opposite Charles Rocket.
Here’s a completely random little Easter egg: I couldn’t be in two places at once, so there was a whole sketch where she was writing a letter or something, and that was my sister, Jane. She was visiting me, and they just put a Nancy Reagan wig on her because I had to be in another room that was geographically very challenging. So they said, “Your sister’s here, isn’t she? Would she sit at the desk?” And my sister said, “Uh, yeah!”

You joined “Weekend Update” as an anchor latish in the season, not until the Ray Sharkey episode in January ’81. What made them wait to add you against Charles Rocket?
[Shrugs.] “We need a woman out there!” It wasn’t like I insisted. I didn’t, like, put the pressure on them while in there eating the cheese in Jean Doumanian’s office.

She had really good cheese! It was the first time I ever had Jarlsberg! All of us would come in there during the week and run through the sketches or whatever, and she just had the best snacks.

Did you audition for “Update”?
No. They just assigned it: “Go ahead, Gail, try this!”

You had a front-row seat during Eddie Murphy’s ascendance at the show.
I have a very clear memory of doing “Weekend Update,” and up he slides and does his basketball thing. I was looking over and heard the response from the live audience. I went, Oh, yeah, some shit just happened here. He’s on his way. It was astounding, because he had such confidence. I’d seen a lot of stand-up at the Improv, etc. I’d seen people kill, and he killed it. It was definitely a moment. I’ve seen him a lot of times in subsequent years, and he’s always lovely to me. Last saw him at a Lakers game!

You and Denny Dillon actually survived the initial cast purge after Jean Doumanian was fired in early 1981, and you both appeared in the revamped final episode of the season.
I remember going one by one into Dick Ebersol’s office. It was like thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Charlie came out: He was gone. Gilly came out: He was gone. It was pretty intense, like Sophie’s Choice.

I’d be remiss to not mention your role in Airplane II. Did you audition for that coming out of SNL?
A casting director called: “Would you do me a favor? Would you do this little part?” I was like, “Yeah! I’m available.” It was a favor, a gimme. I didn’t have to audition.

So that must have been a few months after your season wrapped. You were already back in L.A.?
Oh yes — I hightailed it home and back to my boyfriend’s arms. “What just happened?! Let’s start our lives together!”

We talked earlier about the origins of Roweena. What made you channel her later for Bobby’s World? You even say “Doncha know” in a SNL sketch.
When I was auditioning for Bobby’s World, I had my go-to Midwest accent. Everybody else was speaking in mid-Atlantic. I said, Well, let me just separate myself from the other people auditioning. I auditioned for that, but I’d already been on another sketch-comedy show with several of those people — Laugh Trax with Howie Mandel, and Jim Fisher and Jim Staahl already knew about me and we were friends from that show. They might’ve even suggested it: “Do that Midwest character that you do.” And then they were like, “Oh God, this is good. Nobody else in the show speaks like that. But you do — Martha Generic!”

So, the “Doncha know” catchphrase was always part of Roweena?
It came from my stand-up act. She was a Midwesterner — those were my people; that’s how they talked. My aunt Blanche talked like that. That was her phrase.

I remember one Christmas, I went back to Sioux Falls and I encountered a high-school friend of mine who I realized was the germ for Vicki, because she was developed in the Midwest. She was giving me a ride home, and there was a guy in the back seat of a car that passed out there. And she said, “Oh my God, get out of my car.” And I went, “You’re the voice I’d been doing in my stand-up act in Minneapolis!” Don’t say shit around me. It might end up in my act.

So why get into animated voicework? Your credits are like a ’90s kid’s dream.
I’ve had a varied career. There was the SNL thing, then I came back and got married. I started to say, Okay, we’re married now. Now I want children. I said, I want a voice-over career because it’s very manageable hours, and I’ve always done voices. I have that ability. I’m gonna put myself out there. 

It didn’t not help that I had been on SNL. A lot of doors got opened, and I started working at Hanna-Barbera on Pound Puppies. So, I really kind of got my animation world going at Hanna-Barbera with Gordon Hunt. There weren’t that many animation houses then. Now, it’s exploded. There was no Nickelodeon. I don’t even think there was Warner Bros. cartoons. That’s when I hit pay dirt. I wanted a voice-over career because I wanted a manageable schedule. I did CatDog, Tiny Toons, Ren & Stimpy. I also did a bunch of national commercials.

Did you ever audition for movies?
Body Heat. For Kathleen Turner — they wanted that type. I was that type. Clearly, I wasn’t right for it, because she was so stunning. I was not so in touch with my sexy self. I was more wanting to be the attractive funny person.

What are you working on now? You have your improv troupe?
COVID blew us onto Zoom. We’ve had just a couple of shows in the last few years, but right now my main emphasis is I am in a rock band. We got a club date that we’re trying to build around in Santa Monica in August. I’m the lead female singer. And we do three-part harmony, and I play a mean harmonica. We just added our drummer. It’s taken a minute and we’re all of a certain age, so the whole marketing Instagram stuff is a little out of our talent pool.

Singing was really the first thing I did. I’m kind of surprised I never got to do that on SNL. I didn’t get the chance. I’m almost a grandmother of four. At this point in my life, I’m in a rock band and having more fun than a person my age should have. And they want me to be funny between the songs. I’m a pig in shit.

Are you tracking SNL these days?
In the Ryan Gosling episode, they are breaking a lot. That was such a no-no in my years. No, you stay in character — no giggling. It’s really fun to see how empowered the women are. I mean, I had some pretty good roles, but a lot of times you kind of get relegated to the “women’s roles.”

Are you excited for SNL50?
That’d be swell — if they invite us. That was kind of heartbreaking when Denny and I didn’t get the invite the last time around. Those parties are pretty fun!